Ebbie (and any other unbelievers), I assure you that that's all real. I was there at both the 1998 and 1999 Maryland Banjo Academy, and saw him close up in a class he ran.

You said where neither of Uncle Dave's hands are on the strings but rather are twirling the body of the banjo.

True, neither of his hands was in the usual position, but one of his hands in each of those instances was on the neck near the pot, as the fulcrum of the banjo spin, and he's pulling off at that moment.

If he was on stage, MAYBE some fakery could be done by another banjoist coming in at the proper instants, or MAYBE a recording could be played from a hidden device at that split second, but up close, in good light, in an unprepared venue (a cafeteria in this case, where his class had been unexpectedly moved from another room), no. There were a lot of informed, skilled banjoists there, watching closely (and saying "Wow!"), and to have any trickery-fakery would be MORE marvelous than what actually happened.

It's a high level both of musicianship and jugglery. And of course Uncle Dave was the same, in an era when the technical possibilities of fakery weren't available.

Dave Oesterreich